Rant The "My Apple rant is valid and informed 'cause it's got, like, eight swear words in"

Tsk tsk! It's AMD now for the 6000 series. Anyone still on the ATI brand is a generation or more behind and not a hardcore enthusiast.

Sorry, I don't have anything else to add to the discussion other than I saw Sony mentioned earlier and would like to add that I like their products for reasons similar to people who like Apple. I've got a Sony TV, Sony reciever, PS3 and PSP all working quite seamlessly together, it's nice even if it's at a premium price.

 

NEVER owned an Apple piece of working kit. 3 G5 cases, no proprietary MP3 tune players, no wanna be phones.

I once woke up with an ugly woman. I was young and didn't know better. 6 decades+ on the planet have showed me the error of my ways.

Better an ugly woman than a functional Apple product.

 

lol good way of putting it.. once you got the herpes though, they got you

 

Microsoft publishes drivers that it receives. If you have any problem, contact the manufacture and ask them to make better drivers. Normally, there is 0 issues, as Microsoft Windows Update driver are fairly recent. If they aren't the absolute latest, they are one version under it, and it's a question of days before the latest is published.

 

Well I don't know what happens but somehow every driver from windows update or that came as part of the windows setup (for Nvidia or Creative hardware in my case) I've ever used has been crippled somehow, whether it's reduced performance, unable to load software due to driver functionality, lack of control panel options or hardware features.

My understanding of it was that Microsoft developed the drivers so that they basically worked, performance wasn't an issue for them.

Edit: Just read this

 

You are confusing generic drivers and actual drivers.
Microsoft uses generic drivers, on a device it knows about, but the manufacture refused to provide the drivers for Windows Update.

The problem that you are facing in that treat is that AMD screwed up the card identity in their drivers. So it keep making Windows that you have the right drivers installed.

For Nvidia, the reason why you don't have the Control Panel, is because Nvidia is providing the drivers only to Microsoft. Which makes the update a few kilobytes or megabytes, and not a 100-200MB download. As most average Joe, don't touch Nvidia Control Panel, this is fine.

Creative doesn't publish drivers. They want you to get them from their website which works 1% of the time during a week. In such case, don't buy a Creative. I have one and I hate it very deeply, I am planing on trowing it away and get a Xonar.

 

So how can you tell if it's generic or actual? All the ones I see after a fresh install say Microsoft as the provider

 

Wait so you're slagging off Apple, without actually properly owning one?

 

That is not the point that boiled_elephant was making; his was much less even-handed than you interpret it to be.

@jhanlon303: I don't know about ugly women, but perhaps you are just unable to see past the surface. Hence your infatuation with G5 cases, perhaps? Ah, the forbidden fruit always tastes so much better.

 

Well there you go, they are all Microsoft generic drivers.

 

yeah let you tell it

 

No, it was much more moderate than you've interpreted it to be. I was noting that a lot of the people who most vocally defend apple's products are ignoramuses when it comes to the technology's actual advantages and limitations. I don't think that's a bigoted point of view to take - not when it's directly reinforced by a ton of first-hand experience of apple fanboys. I certainly wasn't making a blanket claim about all people who buy or advocate apple products.

Anyway, I'm out of this one. When even Nexxo turns unnecessarily cattish and hostile, you know a thread is catching on fire. I had hoped we'd finally pull off an apple discussion that didn't turn out this way, though.

 

I don't know how this thread is still going.

Apple: For people not fussed about cost (Although, the Apple owners that bemoan the high price do exist..), and just want something pretty that they don't need to know the ins and outs of.

Enthusiast grade hardware (Because, let's face it, a normal off the shelf PC doesn't have much more, or less, grunt than a piece of Apple kit, and most people who claim to get better for less dives quite quickly into the "enthusiast" branch of hardware): For people that want a project - And to say it's not a project is just a lie. It is. Everyone person here with an enthusiast grade rig barely goes six months without upgrading this that or the other.

iPhones, iPods, iPads even - They succeed because they do exactly what the target audience want them to. Even I, an avid PC supporter, own an iPhone, an iPod, and would like to progress to owning an iPad (Unless the Adam Notion Ink gets out soon(For 40k reasons)) in the near future.

Every device has a place, and to argue that someone is "stupid" or a "sheep" for doing so is just as elitist as the Mac users who profess the greatness of Apple kit, even when they should just be quiet because no one cares.

Frankly this thread has become a bunch of methed up old women in a hat store.

 

Lith you are my hero. That's sig quoted for sure

 

I still don't get a couple of assumptions some people make in this thread though:

discerning geek = good
performance = good
paying for design = bad
design = intangible
paying extra for intangible qualities = bad
apple bad = because of fanboys (the best one so far)
consumers = sheep
people don't buy what they want, they but stuff because its shine and apple tells them to
dells = as good as macbooks

now the main problem in thinking, which I don't think is possible to explain to some is the matter of the intangible. If people tell me that similarly specced dell is cheaper than macbook pro, has build quality, therefore there is no point in buying a macbook pro, I'll just politely disagree, and tell them they are missing my point. With macbook pro I get a way nicer design (DESIGN IS IMPORTANT), that is a coherent experience with the operating system, I get better battery life without adding to computer's bulk and weight, and the whole thing was designed with the user in mind, instead of being designed with spec in mind. So whatever I lose on the system spec front, I make up in the weight *try to find a similarly specced PC laptop that weighs the same as MBP* , physical size *find a similarly specced ps laptop that is not thicker than MBP*, battery life *find a laptop that has same specs and size, and gets the same battery life*

You'll end up with a couple high end laptops that cost the same if not more (in some cases than a macbook pro), namely some high end IBMs, HP envy, Vaio Z series.

What apple have done, they have thought about a portable computer in a slightly different way. Instead of making it a problem of cramming as much grunt into the case, they decided to think what is important about laptop and how to make it work

 

In Canada (and the US for that matter), a cell phone is quite a luxury item. Plans *start* from $40/month. That's just for the plan itself - you need to pay extra upfront for the phone, and you get locked into a 3 year contract(!). You then pay for incoming(!) calls and text messages, and the usage allowances for minutes/texts/data are, to put it lightly, stingy. Throw in the fact that you have just three networks across a massive country with incompatible technologies, and you can probably see why GoodBytes does without a phone.

 

Damn. In Denmark you can get plans from 5$ a month, 0.2$ pr. minute and free SMS. And the maximum binding period in Denmark is 6 months.

 

I love my country...

 

*Joins club, looks at HTC Pro 7 with 1200 Minutes, 1GB Data Allowance and 12000txts for £35*

I would hate for our mobile industry to take a step backwards.

 

I've never really considered Apple products until recently, never really been a fan of their philosophy (in terms of closed-ness etc) so stuck with Android.

Recently (when the Xoom table was announced) I started looking at the various options for a tablet. The iPad was always up there, but previous experience with Android swayed things more towards the Android/Honeycomb side.
To cut a long story short, I spent last Friday afternoon queuing up for a the new iPad2 and, I have to say it's been a very pleasurable experience since then.

I've had some frustrations with iTunes and getting things setup - that's not the fault of iTunes/Apple, more my in-experience with the platform.
For a tablet, the iPad does exactly what I want. It works. It's easy to use. It's quick. It's flexible and there's a LOT of VERY well made apps.

Would I buy and iMac or iPhone? No probably not. There's just not quite enough flexibility available from Apple (AT THE MOMENT) - especially in terms of widgets, layout etc.

This brings me onto the actual point of this post....
I don't get why some people are so "anti-apple" or "anti-Android" (or anti window/linux or whatever). Every platform has it's advantages and disadvantages. Work out what YOU want from your kit and choose the relevant platform.
The lack of widgets on iOS is annoying, but the fact you have to "hack" a lot of stuff onto Android is also annoying (although it's nice you CAN if you want).

I also understand Apples "closed" approach in many respects. If you look at Android now, the quality of apps IS suffering because of fragmentation. Sure there's a thriving dev community out there and Android itself is relatively immature compared to iOS, but the wide range of hardware and software versions floating around (IMO) limits things somewhat.
Things like accessories are also limited - how many "imitation" cases or desktop docs do you see for the Nexus S or Nexus One? VERY few.
OS upgrades are delivered by carrier or supplier in the majority of cases which looks to increase fragmentation further.
Sure Android is giving more people access to cheap smart phones and some excellent apps, but the end user experience is unlikely EVER to be as good as iOS simply because the OS/Apps have to cater for a wide range of different hardware.

Am I and Android Fanboi - no. The more I use Android devices the more I see the shortfalls as a result of fragmentation issues.
Am I an Apple Fanboi - no.
I know what I want from a device and am tech savvy enough to know where to go to get what I want.


Probably o/t, but just my 2p's worth